Of Staff and Coin
by LynchingVerse
Summary: Solomon Kane and Nicodemus. Two immortal, yet human champions in the war between Heaven and Hell. It was destined they would come to meet each other on the field of battle one day. Originally by Cracklord
1. Chapter 1

The man was of medium weight and build with raven dark hair streaked with silver, drawn back into a single braid. His expression was mild, calm, that of a careful and thoughtful man seldom roused to emotion, and his dark eyes were calm and unfocused, giving him a perpetual sleepy look. He himself wasn't tall, nor particularly well-built. But he still carried a Presence, like an Old Testament Prophet, a magnetism that demanded attention.

Hauntingly handsome, he cut an incongruous figure, lurking in the wild and savage jungle, dressed in his expensive shirt of scarlet and gold, his fine calfskin gloves, polished boots with golden buckles, and long black cape edged in the palest ermine. A slender grey tie made of old rope hung around his neck. A rapier was belted at his hip, made of Damascus steel with an ivory hilt. But it was no showman's piece, it had known little rest and had served him well for a long time.

He'd finished his work, and turned, his eyes meeting nothing but the sullen, shadowy reaches of the unmapped jungle. Shouldering the shovel, he went with the stealth and easy movement of a leopard, feeling his way cautiously, every nerve alert and straining, but the way was not easy. Vines tripped at his legs and slapped him in the face, impeding his progress and forcing him to grope his way between the huge boles of the towering trees. All through the underbrush sounded vague and menacing rustlings, shadows of movement, and he glimpsed the baleful glimmer of eyes amongst the trees.  
>He spared it not another glance. The night held nothing more terrible then him.<p>

Imperialism! He could almost believe he loved it! The more advanced cultures decided that they were superior, and therefore had an obligation to enslave and destroy everyone else, loot them as much as they could, all in the name of the greater good. Mankind had changed, now it could no longer loot and pillage honestly. Currency reigned supreme, and that suited him fine. He hadn't had so much fun since the crusades.

He'd come to Africa to kill missionaries, and doing his best to stop the church from getting a foothold in the Dark Continent while he was at it, while encouraging the slave trade as much as he could. Of course, once he'd gotten to the jungle he'd found dozens of other interests to pursue, the relatively lawless British ports he'd stayed at had given him all the distraction he could wish for. There was so much that felt new here, on the frontier, and that suited the Dark Apostle very well.

Limbs and vines lashed at his face as he made his way out of the jungle and back to what could generously be called civilization. The oppressive steam of the tropic night rose like mist around him. The moon, now floating high above the jungle, limned the black shadows in a white glow and patterned the jungle floor in grotesque designs. And the he came to a path, little more then an unpaved trail of trampled dirt and small plants, that led back to the port where the ship would be awaiting him.

Moving out of the growth, he stares out to the port, and is hit by an unexpected silence and stillness. No light, no sound, nothing. The Queen Anne's Revenge was still docked in the bay, and the crew should be helping themselves, and yet nothing. No light in the windows, no sound but the dock rats, squeaking in anticipation and scuttling about.

For all the conquest of the white man, it was the rats who truly benefited, spreading to the few places in the world that had not already been forced to adapt to them by the exploration.

The silence is disquieting, but nothing but a slight tightness in his posture betrays any feeling one way or another about it. He simply follows a path worn into the un-paved road by the eager footsteps of many bow-legged sailors, up along the beach to the cluster of dark buildings –where the beach ends and the taverns and inns begin, yet where there should a tumult of sound and light that cracks the rusty night in debauched celebration, there was but the silence of the grave, the whistling of the ocean breeze and the sounds of the jungle.

The pirates were all dead. Thirty corpses with their tongues torn out were scattered about the place, not his men, but loyal enough for what he was paying them. The rest were nowhere to be seen, but it wasn't hard to note they'd met a similar fate. Edward Teach was in the center, an almost comical look of surprise on his face, his sword on the ground, having slipped from his nerveless fingers. He'd put up a fight, of course he had, the old necromancer would never go quietly into the night, but it hadn't been good enough.

Kneeling, he took a look at the wounds, and noted a sharp blade had done them all. As impossible as it seemed, this was the work of a mortal, no supernatural creature had been involved. A man had done this. He turned slowly, and found himself facing the perpetrator.

A tall, grimly-attired man, towering above the newly-made corpses, clad in black from head to foot, close fitting garments that suited his somber face. Long arms and broad shoulders marked him as a swordsman, as plainly as the rapier in his hand.

His features were saturnine and gloomy, so gaunt he looked as though he'd been boiled until all the flesh had fallen off him. But he didn't look weak. Quite the contrary, he looked as though he didn't need size for strength and so discarded it. His eyes deep-set and unblinking, and looking into them it was impossible to decide what color they were. They were cold, but deep, gazing into them one had the impression of looking into countless fathoms of ice. A high, broad forehead, marked him as an idealist and dreamer, but even so he looked tough enough to make Nicodemus feel like a soft-boiled egg.  
>His other hand holds a plain staff, with notches in pleasing patterns and a rough approximation of a cats head on the top. It looked old, but little more. It was the rapier that concerned Nicodemus.<p>

"I looked for you in Ireland. But you were nowhere to be found." Said the grim apparition, his voice resonant and powerful, flicking his blade, a line of blood appearing on the wall beside him, then resting it on his shoulder.

"Well, I wasn't there for long." Nicodemus replied, sounding for all the world as though he was talking about the weather. His eyes were sparkling with contempt, as though it was the puritan and not the murderous heretic who was the deviant. "I got restless, and the famine was not what it had promised."

"And again in Paris. I thought I'd found you again. I missed you by hours, and killed a dozen horses tracking you across the continent."

"Ah, you almost cornered me in Florence. And you did manage to keep my trail? I congratulate you on your determination. Then again, it can't have been hard. I stay in the most expensive accommodations available, I am generous to the help, and leave no shortage of bodies behind. It seems inconceivable you did not meet me on the road. If you had, that would have been the end of you wanderings." 

"Then in the Orient. India."

"Yes, that sounds about right. I take it you are the one who accounted for Le Loup? Went out laughing, I trust? Shame, he showed so much promise. But then, this environment you have created gives me no shortage of followers. I have recently rediscovered my love of Empires." He replied calmly.

"Particularly in their opening stages. You justify your greed and kill anyone who has something that you want. Indeed, after watching civilization come so far forward I am almost reassured to see how little has changed. I could grow to love what you Englishmen are doing to their neighbors. It's certainly more interesting then the last years have been." He scratches the side of his head. "Why have you followed me like this?"

"Because you are less then a man, and it is my destiny to kill you." Answered Kane, no more understanding the question then Nicodemus could understand the puritan's single minded pursuit of him since that day in Ireland.

All Kane's life he had roamed about the world, aiding the weak and fighting oppression wherever he found it, he neither knew or questioned why. That was his obsession, the driving force of his life. Those that preyed on the weak sent a blaze of red fury in his heart, fierce and lasting, through the soul. If he thought of it at all, and he rarely did, he considered himself a fulfiller of God's judgment, a vessel of wrath to be emptied on the souls of the unrighteousness. But he was not a man given to introspection, and more then he was to compromise.

"That's hardly the actions of a good Christian boy like yourself." Nicodemus chuckled indulgently, though Solomon didn't even seem aware of the mocking tone. "If I'd wronged you personally then perhaps I could understand, I too would follow an enemy across the world, but I'd never even heard of you before you declared war upon me!"

Kane was silent, his still fury overwhelming him. Though he himself didn't realize it, Nicodemus was more then an enemy to him, he symbolized all that Kane had fought against all his life, cruelty, outrage, oppression and the suffering of the weak.

"You have no chance against me, you know." He continues, his shadow moving between them of it's own accord, not moving so much as flowing, reforming once more to a vaguely human appearance in the pale moonlight. "You have only survived so long because I have allowed it. Some lingering trace of courtesy, and because I found our game interesting. I know I could kill you whenever fancy took it, but I have not had a liking to confront you, and enjoyed the chase, I who thought I'd long since exhausted all the thrills of life."

Kane was silent a moment before he found his words. "No. It is by the grace of God that I have you here, and it is by his grace that I shall end the infernal existence you've sustained." But doubt had wormed it's way into his mind, and a certain fatalism held him in it's grip. Perhaps he would die. All who had tried to kill Nicodemus Arcleone before had, their bodies scattered across the world. It was not death itself that he feared, it was the knowledge that this Black Apostle would continue after him, that once he was dead Nicodemus would go on to commit atrocity after atrocity. It was the thought that all he had done would go unpunished that made him feel something not far removed from fear.

There was more of the pagan about him then the Puritan, whatever he himself might claim. Death did not frighten him, but the thought of this death, the thought of failing did grant him a brooding sort of anger at the world for allowing this to exist.

Nicodemus laughed at his momentary uncertainty. "Insight! To think I despaired." He said. "All of it, all the misery and fear, all the suffering and sorrow, it's simply because I enjoy tormenting men like you. " He studied the back of his hand for a moment, then looked at the warrior who had sought him out once more. "If you ask nicely, however, I might be persuaded to let you leave this place alive." He glanced at the dead pirates particularly at their captain, and his lips narrowed. "You should be quick in your begging, however. You have inconvenienced me quite a bit."

Solomon stepped back, the tip of his sword dipping a hair towards the ground, then he tightened his grip. "Are you quite done? Your craven begging diminishes us both." A man of faith did not meet the works of the Fallen with wizardry of his own. He did not challenge the Dark powers of Old Night with weapons as steeped in depravity and wickedness as they. No the weapons he relied on was courage and determination, to never allow fear and horror to take command of his heart, to never allow doubt and regret to weaken his resolve.

"I am a servant of God." He snarled. "And I shall make you answer for your crimes, though I perish doing it. Doom and judgment are upon you, you blasphemous slattern!" Kane, not being a man given to profanities, his rare curses having double the effect and always startling those that heard, no matter how vicious or hardened they might be.

Nicodemus went very still, then he sighed softly. "I see that I was mistaken. You are an idiot afterall. Perhaps I shall one day answer to your ineffectual concept of justice, but not for considerable time, if at all. There is much I must achieve first."

"We have spoken enough this night, interloper. The hour grows late, and I have little time to bandy words with a corpse that should have died long ago." Kane said, advancing towards the shadowy figure, his sword held before and across his body, his arm steel and knotted oak. Nicodemus steps back, and lifts his arms. His shadow leaps around his arm, flowing out from his hand to reveal a Hellfire-forged rapier. Behind him, his living shadow rises, wings of purest night, and the moonlight seems to dim.

"En garde."


	2. Chapter 2

Their blades flickered, meeting once, twice, with a twist and sway of their steely bodies, then they both drew back, once more taking the measure of their opponent, Nicodemus's lazy eyes meeting the steel of Solomon's.

"Not bad. You have no idea how rare you are. Most people have only a few decades of experience to draw upon, leaving them quite outclassed by myself. It's rare to meet a man like you, one gifted enough to do so much with so little."

Solomon Kane was silent, although he didn't believe the dark man's boasting. Time had taught him that knowledge came with age and experience, that was true enough. Still, at forty two years of age, he went through as much adversity as he had lived through his youth, he'd met the peak of his skill long since, and his improvements and understanding became honed in tinier, finer detail. The changes he made became increasingly minuscule with every year. He doubted that the difference of learning for a decade and a century were really all that much, if one applied themselves to the task. No, Nicodemus may have more experience, but they'd both moved long past the point where such details were telling.

Instead he takes the staff in his left hand and drives it into the earth, the point sinking easily into the soil, and lifts the tip of his blade again, still and silent. His focus was absolute, his devotion to the task unquestionable. He had every intention of killing Nicodemus, and while there was life in him nothing would deter him.

Nicodemus smiles a little, his shadow huge and indistinct in the paltry torchlight, seeming to pulse in time to some unearthly drumbeat. Then the spell is broken, and he leaps forward again in a textbook lunge, his blade whickering forward at Solomon's breast.

Every instinct - all of his carefully hoarded expertise, warned Solomon to leap backwards, or aside, or upwards, anywhere but in the attack. He disregarded it, tapping the rapier aside with a quick parry, then tore his dagger out of his sheath and drove his shoulder into Nicodemus' as he did. He caught his opponent in the center of his chest, sending him staggering back, then twisted the knife to one side and cut upwards.

With a sound of surprise Nicodemus lurched backwards, trying to reverse the angle of his flailing sword arm. But before he could, the dagger's edge had sliced through the muscle of his bicep as neatly as a wire through cheese.

There was surprisingly little blood for so significant a wound. A trickle, not the spurting river one would expect. It oozed lightly out his neatly torn flesh, then stopped abruptly, the gash pale and ghastly.  
>Nicodemus narrowed his eyes and stepped back smoothly, swapping hands as he did, his movements not that of the newly crippled. He was naturally right handed, but had worked hard to get ambidextrous, and was just as competent with either hand. Reversing his grip on the dagger, Solomon pressed forward, his mind full of predatory concentration.<p>

Nicodemus lunged again, the exact same move as last time, and Solomon lunged into the blow once more, this time slashing at the pale white flesh beneath the chin. The steel connected with barely a sound.

The ancient man's eyes opened into twin circles of shock as the knife ripped upwards into the soft flesh beneath his chin. Then his mouth gaped open into an expression of perfect outrage as Solomon pulled the blade out of his throat, and left him gurgling through a death rattle. Again, there was surprising little blood, considering the severed artery and cut throat.

Solomon watched him stumble and fall with solemn silence, befitting the grim Puritan. He said no final words, sought no closure despite the five years he had spent in hunt of the Black Apostle, taking him across the world. Such was as alien to the man as the rest was. He felt a certain satisfaction, but more he was conscious of a strange feeling of futility. Somehow, it felt that no real good had been wrought, as though, afterall, his foe had escaped his just vengeance. Then he shook it off, and cleansed his sword mechanically on his tattered garments. He'd done what he came to do, and that was all, no further ceremony observed or required. He'd hack his way through the jungle, catch a merchant ship and make his way back to Europe, once more a landless wanderer. He had no need to remain in Africa any longer. Pausing a moment, he wiped the blood from his sword, and replaced it at his hip, then turned and began to walk away.

"Don't get ahead of yourself." Says the urbane voice that only recently stopped mocking him, and Solomon turns to see Nicodemus getting steadily to his feet, picking up the blade in his suddenly functional right hand, and turning to look at the puritan once more. His skin was marred and ugly where the blades had sunk into his flesh, but repairing itself by the second with a rippling movement, the skin rippling until it was clear again. "A fine start, however. You didn't even hesitate to kill me."  
>Kane turned, eyes wide with amazement and superstitious terror. Mind reeling, he almost dropped his sword as his flesh crawled with something akin to horror. Superstitious enough to believe in portents, curses and foul magic's in the way that others believed in ships and houses. He did not doubt his sanity, or the evidence of his perceptions. No, he had no doubt that Nicodemus had died a real death at the point of his blade, and had lived again. At some point, Nicodemus had come upon some Secret, overcoming the limitations and shackles of the flesh and allowing him to surpass Death, that oldest of enemies.<p>

What thoughtless, timeless journeys had he taken? How had he gained this dark wisdom? Then came a clarity, lent to his subconscious mind by his hate, and he raised his blade once more. He was a moment too late.

Nicodemus' sword whipped silently forward, tearing through the leather and cotton of Solomon's clothes with an angry whine. It sent a lance of white hot pain slicing across the muscles of his midsection. "I wonder, is this the result of all you have seen, justifying my execution, or do you kill everyone who crosses your path?" Nicodemus said, his shadow spreading still further, until t seemed he stood before a wall of pure dark. "You certainly don't give the impression of a particularly tolerant fellow."

In answer, Solomon tosses aside the knife and wrapped his hand around the pistol tucked securely to his belt. Cocking it with a single, thoughtless twitch as he draws and aims it, all in the one, flowing movement, he pulls the trigger. There was a crisp detonation and pain exploded in Nicodemus' chest, as the lead ball took him clean between the third and fourth ribs. He staggered back a step, jerking and twisting, then slumped against the wall, but he didn't fall.

Nicodemus dug a finger into the hole, rooting around until he dug out the hot lead ball with a fingernail, and held it between his thumb and forefinger. He dropped it to the ground, shaking his head.

"Well that was hardly in the spirit of things, was it?" he smiles, getting back to his feet, and leveling his blade. "Now are you quite done with distractions?"

Solomon nodded once, not seeming all that surprised by the result. Having survived the blade in his throat, in his heart Solomon had begun to doubt that he truly could triumph here. "Enough. Come on then, hellspawn. Kill me if you can."

Those were fighting words, but Solomon was discomforted, He'd expected as much, but he'd wanted to confirm it, beyond any doubt. Nicodemus was immortal.

Those who dabbled in the dark arts did so at the peril of not only their immortal soul, but their very ability to reason. Those that drew upon them were twisted and corrupted, until they forgot what had driven them to this point in the first place. Nicodemus, however, was not like them.

It was all too easy to dismiss Nicodemus as a madman, but under-estimating him in such a manner was a fatal error. Nicodemus was a twisted and evil man, but not truly insane. He was all too aware of the horror and perversion of what he did, he appreciated in full that his actions were lawless and murderous, indeed, he even took a certain craftsmen's pleasure in them. That great mind, that powerful intellect had been twisted, perhaps even tainted, but it had never been broken. It was not the base cunning of a madman that had allowed him to remain at large committing his atrocities, but the wicked application of that wicked intellect. No, there was no such excuse for his all too willing seduction into the ways of evil. None at all.

Again the uncertainty wormed it's way into Solomon. He had seen what this man could do, had seen first hand the awful, devastating power at his command. There was no question that the abominations he served were all too real, and there was no question that they had bestowed their dark gifts and favor apon the man.

He had just struck him a fatal blow, he'd watched what should have been the end of him, and yet here he stood, a few droplets of blood on his otherwise pristine clothing the only sign he'd been wounded at all. Could he even die?

Solomon brought up his sword, as he saw his enemies blade flickering towards his eyes, ducking a moment too late. Another thread of agony zipped across his forehead, and a spill of hot blood ran down into his eyes.

He counterstroke, but hit only air, Nicodemus flitting to one side with the grace and finesse of a dancing instructor. With a practiced flick of his wrist, Nicodemus struck again, the blade of the rapier swishing playfully through the air. Solomon ducked aside, then tossed the knife, only for Nicodemus to skip lightly back and bat it aside with the edge of his blade.

"Come on, can't you do any better?" he asked, nipping forward to send the tip of the blade stinging across the Puritan's nose, then tapping the blade aside. A sudden whirl of blades, and then the fight settled into a rhythm.

Minutes flew by, the clang and clash of steel not diminishing. Now they stood squarely in the center of the town, Nicodemus seemingly untouched, seeming almost casual, Kane's garments red with the blood that oozed from the wounds that oozed on his breast, arm and thigh.

Nicodemus knew the wounds he had inflicted on Solomon were not deep, but even so, the steady flow of blood should have sapped some of his speed and strength. But if Kane felt the ebb of his powers, it did not show. His brooding countenance did not change expression, and he pressed the fight with the same cold fury he had exhibited from the beginning.

Both lashed against the other, their blades meeting vis-à-vis in the air, and the two strained against each other, seeming equally matched. "Come on." Nicodemus mocked, smiling at Solomon's dark countenance as though he found the whole affectation of a duel amusing, which is completely correct. "Don't tell me that's all you have. Is it? Because it's not even nearly good enough…"

Solomon Kane hit him.

Nicodemus felt as though he'd been slammed face first into a stone wall, the blow nearly taking his eye out. Blood ran from his brow into his left eye, as the socket swelled up purple and tender. Half the world blurred as he lost most of his vision from it. Nicodemus only smiled. "That's more like it."  
>Solomon didn't reply, stepping back a step, his sword snaking at Nicodemus once more while the momentary advantage was his. His breath came fast and his arm began to weary, though one would be hard-pressed to see the effects of exhaustion on him, he was reaching his limit, and Nicodemus could be fresh for all the discomfort he showed. Who was this man of shadow and steel who never seemed to weaken? The same thing that preserved his life seemingly preserved his body from the rigors of exhaustion.<p>

But Solomon didn't surrender to the tolls of his body anymore then he would surrender to Nicodemus. Rallying his strength and hate, he dove forward, a sudden, unexpected attack too swift for the eye to follow, a dynamic burst of speed no man could have withstood, and Nicodemus blinked in shock as his blade was sent singing from his hand, then was sent reeling as the englishmen's rapier made a silver line in the moonlight.

Blood, just a little, bubbled from Nicodemus's throat, then was pushed aside to make way for the mocking laughter.

A slow, deadly rage surged in Solomon then – the fury of helplessness. The blood churned in his temples and his eyes smoldered with a terrible light as he eyes the Dark Apostle, his sword still planted in his chest, impaling his heart. His fingers spread and closed like claws. They were strong, those hands, men had died in their clutch. Nicodemus's slender column of a neck would snap like a rotten branch between them, and yet it would do him no good. For his enemy would not die. Kane could not even have fled had he wished – and he had never fled a single foe.

With a haughty arrogance, Nicodemus pulled the blade from him with a wet sound, and tossed it aside distastefully. "I don't think anyone's ever beaten me so decisively twice." He says, and some quality in his voice has changed. For all his civilized air, Nicodemus does not like to be thwarted or defied. "Do you think you can do it again?"

Although the night was black as pitch, Solomon could tell that dawn was not far off. It had something to do with the smell, the first faint stirrings of the ocean breeze had started to stir through the smell of blood and death. This revived him, and he straightened, hoping Nicodemus would get it over with, before his growing weakness sent him crumpling to the earth.

And the Denarian didn't disappoint. A second set of eyes opened on his forehead, glowing sickly green. They were slanted like a cats, their iris and pupils the wrong shape, and they were unreadable and emotionless. His shadow surged and gathered behind him, and then rolled forward like an oncoming tide, sweeping Solomon away.


End file.
